By Annabel Brodie-Smith
Welcome back after a long hot summer - I hope you enjoyed it. I have eaten croissants and drunk rosé in the South of France and have survived a drastic move from central London to Oxfordshire. It’s great to look out of the kitchen window and see the squirrels playing in the garden but the commute will take some getting used to! You have the opportunity to win £3,000 to invest in an investment company of your choice just by filling in our short survey on saving for children. Please do participate as we’d like to get across the message of the benefits of long-term saving to parents and their children as part of our 150th anniversary celebrations.
This week Amazon become the second public company to be worth $1 trillion joining Apple which hit the trillion-dollar milestone in early August. This demonstrates the increasing influence of technology, so it’s an appropriate time to look at how some of the global investment companies are incorporating technology in their portfolios. We gather views from Scottish Mortgage, Bankers, Brunner and Mid Wynd International.
There’s some interesting facts. Alex Crooke of Bankers thinks online shopping is still in its early days: “In the US, e-commerce accounts for just 13% of retail sales and its growth rate has actually been increasing in the last two years.”
Far away from Oxfordshire, Alasdair McKinnon, who manages the Scottish Investment Trust, has been living it up in New York. He identifies some ‘fads’ “because where New York leads, the rest of the world very often follows”. However, Alasdair makes the point that fresh dog food in special fridges in New York supermarkets is evidence that it’s been way too easy for businesses to raise cash because of cheap money and this is coming to an end.
However, two views make a market, so it’s fascinating to hear his contrarian view that traditional retailers in Manhattan were doing better than expected when facing online competition.
Finally, linking fads, fashion and technology Ian Cowie looks at the popularity of different styles and sectors in investment considering the current popularity of the FAANG stocks – Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google – listed as Alphabet. He reminds us not to get too carried away with FAANGs or any investment trend and revisits the tech bubble bursting in 2000. His sensible view is: “The simplest and surest way for investors to cope with these uncertainties is diversification; or spreading our investment exposure over a range of assets rather than relying too heavily on a single company or country.”
Wishing you a good autumn. I’m about to embrace country life by going blackberry picking this weekend.
Annabel Brodie-Smith Communications Director, AIC
